Just Another Stranger
by berryfuls
Summary: Peter's face twitches with contempt and anger. "I'm not from here, am I?" - The hospital scene from TMFTOS. Oneshot.


**Whoop, two in one day! I'm on fire! And this was supposed to be short! Well, its short compared to You Won't Find This. :P This one takes place during the hospital scene at the end. The fakeness and coldness of Peter kind of scared me, and I had to get this down. It's not my favorite, but anything I don't come up with on my own tends to not be my favorite. Oh well. Enjoy.**

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Blackness.

She knows what its like to be unconscious. Heaven knows how many times she's been in his place before.

Flashes of gray light remind him he's still alive. The flashes and the beeping of the heart monitor. He slowly starts to focus on her face, her gentle but happy smile. Relaxation pulls his body against the hospital bed.

"Welcome back."

Back? Back to where? He remembers everything all of a sudden. That it's back to consciousness, not the other reality where he was born. That he's angry with her. She's lied to him. Her smile drops into anxiety and confusion. The blind fury causes him to have a blank, cold look for a couple seconds, until he's able to force a smile. She smiles back - she believes the lie.

He's oddly comforted by her ignorance. Maybe it's the fact that he can get some answers out of her before he can finally confront them. He takes a gruff breath. "How long was I out?"

"Uh, about a day and a half." She leans over to the table beside him and offers a plastic cup filled with ice. "Here." He takes one of the cubes and stretches. "The doctors said you'd be fine, but Walter was worried." Her smile never falters.

He fakes another smile and shakes his head. "I'm fine." He clears his throat. That was probably all he needed to know right now, so he puts on a even bigger fake smile. "Is he here?"

"Yeah, he wouldn't leave. He'll want to know that you're up." She turns to leave – she's probably sensed his façade, she always seems to see through him.

"O-lib-bia." His voice is muffled by the ice in his mouth. She turns around by the door, long ponytail flipping over the shoulder of her peacoat. "I'd like to speak to him alone, if that's okay." Her smile falls completely. She knows right then that he knows. He doesn't bother to try and assure it would a normal father-to-son talk. She knows it isn't.

It's her turn to force a smile. "Sure." And then she's gone, just giving him a glance through the little window. He watches the window with a gleam in his eye – a longing for the truth. The other man comes in the room then, a bright, overjoyed grin on his face.

Peter wishes that this man really was his father. That none of this science stuff had ever happened and he was just happy with someone as entertaining as Walter to be his father. He wishes that none of this had ever happened, that it was Walter, his mother, and Peter, maybe even dating Olivia.

But those are just little wishes and wishing for things doesn't make them come true. There's no magic genie to solve all his problems. And all the lines had been crossed already; all the betrayal wasn't going to just go away.

"Peter!" Walter says and laughs happily. He rubs Peter's arm in a comforting manner, but is too excited. "They told me you'd be alright, but I was so worried, son!"

The first and immediate thing he thinks of is '_I am not your son_.' But he manages to keep it in, to just look at the man he had called "Dad" just days before. Walter doesn't know that he, Peter, knows. At least not yet.

The way Peter looks at him makes him realize something's wrong. Very wrong. "There was another man on that bridge," Peter starts slowly. He keeps his eyes on Walter, gauging his reactions. "When Newton's device started to work, I saw him there. Just… walking down the bridge. He had to have been from the other side." It's obvious that Walter has figured it out, but Peter goes on, just as carefully. "You said the effects of Newton's vibrations would be devastating. And… they were. They, ah, just destroyed that FBI agent. Just disintegrated him, like he wasn't even there."

He pauses for a second and gives Walter an almost quizzical look. Like he's asking, '_How could you do this to me?_'

"But they didn't kill the man from the other side…and they didn't kill me." Walter's blue eyes start to tear up, so he closes them in resign. When he opens them back up, Peter's face twitches with contempt and anger. "I'm not from here, am I? You didn't just open up a hole to the other side – you went through. And you brought me back. That's why I was able to survive Newton's device. It's why I can't remember my childhood."

Walter tries to interrupt, the panic and pain in his face evident. "You were dying, Peter! I-"

But Peter just keeps on, as if Walter hadn't said anything. "It's why my mother committed suicide. Isn't it? She knew, didn't she? And when I left, the guilt was too much for her to live with, the lie."

Walter waits a beat. "Peter, you need to understand something-"

"I understand, Walter. I understand everything now."

The older man shakes his head, just barely keeping the tears from spilling over. "Son-"

"I am not. Your. Son." He pronounces each word with cold emphasis. The part that troubled Walter the most was that Peter's face hadn't changed from emptiness to anger or anything. It was just icy and distant. He realizes the mistake and appears to regret it. He wants to say something, but nothing seems appropriate. "I'd like to be alone now."

Peter had transformed back into the young man he had been when they had had their first meet after seventeen years, back at St. Claires, all the progress of the past two years had been for what? A lie? Olivia had to have known from the start. Walter and her had probably had had quite some discussions whenever he wasn't around. And if she didn't know until after the day in New York, that doesn't change much. She still didn't tell him, she still kept Walter's secret. She had put Walter's trust in her before his dependence of her, and now he had no one. He was better off dead, the amount of love they were showing him.

Walter had already left, with his lower jaw trembling. He had kept the sobs in as his world fell apart from under him. He observes his son- no, Peter, that wasn't his son, through the little window. Peter pretends he doesn't know Walter's there. For he was just another stranger, another stranger he had completely changed his life for.


End file.
